Known from the art of making wind turbine rotor blades is to manufacture separate parts (e.g. two half shells) of the blade in separate moulds and, at the end of the process, to close the mould parts together to form a full rotor blade. Subsequently, resin may be injected in the blade composite material situated in the enclosure formed by the mould parts. The mould parts may be closed about a longitudinal hinge line were a crane is used to lift one of the mould parts about the hinge line thereby forming a movement along a single arc. DK 171948 B discloses one example thereof.
WO 2007/054088 A1 discloses another method for closing a mould assembly. In this method, a double hinged pivotable mechanism allows one of the mould parts to move along two circular arcs instead of only a single one during a rotation process of the mould part which leads to closing a mould.
WO 2004/043679 A1 discloses another method for closing a mould assembly with a first and a second mould part. In this method, a hinge mechanism allows the second mould part to move along an arc into a partly closed position. The second mould part is then moved to engage the first mould part by a displacement means for a rectilinear translational movement of the second mould part.
As wind turbine rotor blades have become increasingly larger over the years the necessity for working personal to access the open mould parts from both sides for layout of, e.g., glass fibre material in the mould have increased.
One issue related to the prior art of blade manufacturing is that during the process of closing the mould parts the work space between the moulds is interfered and, e.g. walkways, scaffolds, etc. may have to be removed before the closing operation.
Another issue related to the prior art is that it is difficult to join the separated composite material in the moulds simultaneously whereby some parts of the material may be dislocated in relation to others. This in turn may induce, e.g., wrinkles along the edges of the joined edges of the composite material introducing weak structure points.